Position the new upper A-arm bushings in the A-arm, then carefully press them about halfway in with a bench vice. Next, install the new PST upper inner shaft and press the two bushings the rest of the way on. Once the two bushings are fully pressed into position, the upper inner shaft will be securely held in place. | 
The ball joints on the lower A-arms can be installed with a regular shop press or with a special C-clamp, as shown in the photo. Note that the lower A-arm bushings are two different types--one round and one oval (arrows). Some Chevelles use two round bushings, so this should be checked out before you order your rebuild kit. | 
Once the A-arms are fully assembled, it's a good idea to give them a good coating of paint. We used Eastwood Chassis Black spray paint, which doesn't require primer and is extremely durable to combat harsh under-car conditions. |
Remove all the old steering linkage in one piece (if possible). Doing so allows you to use the old setup as a template when you go to assemble the new PST components. | 
The upper A-arms are the first items we re-installed on the Chevelle. Assemble the parts just as the old pieces were fastened. At this time, do not use any shims on the upper inner shaft bolts--this will be done during alignment. Notice the surrounding frame and suspension components. While the front end was disassembled, we cleaned the surfaces and painted everything with black spray paint. | 
Once the upper A-arms are in place, install the lower A-arms using the new nuts and bolts supplied in the PST kit. |
With the upper and lower A-arms in place, install the coil springs. We reused our stock coil springs but cleaned and painted them before they were re-installed. Do not use a floor jack to try to compress the coil springs during reassembly. Instead, use a coil-spring compressor to install the springs in the A-arm assemblies. If you do not own a coil-spring compressor (or don't want to buy one), you can usually rent one from an auto parts store or your local "rent-all" shop. | 
After installing the coil spring, we used a floor jack to hold the lower A-arm and spring assembly in the proper location as we installed the spindle. After positioning the spindle on the upper and lower ball joints, carefully tighten the ball-joint nuts and add the new cotter pins (supplied). | 
With the coil-spring compressor and floor jack out of the way, install the shock absorbers. Our stock shocks were complete junk and were leaking, so we installed a new set of gas-charged shocks. PST carries a full line of KYB gas shocks, so if you're going to update to new units during your rebuild, simply order them along with your rebuild kit and you'll be ready for action. |
After inspecting the wheel bearings, repack them with high-temp grease. Then re-install the rotors on the spindles and torque the bolts to factory specs. If you look at the rotors in the photo, you'll notice that the Chevelle's brakes are fairly wasted. But that's another story coming up in a few issues! | 
Once you've got the steering linkage pieced together (as advised in step 17), installing it in the car is easy. Start by bolting on the steering arm and idler arm, then attach the tie rods to the spindles. After the bolts are tightened, be sure to add the cotter pins used to retain the nuts. | 
The antiroll bar is the last suspension part to be installed. We cleaned and painted our antiroll bar, added the new PST bushings/brackets and tightened the bolts to O.E.M. specs. The PST kit also comes with new antiroll-bar end links (arrow), which are super-easy to install. |
After all the new PST suspension parts are in place, you'll need to take the car to a reputable alignment shop. The size and type of tire as well as the type of driving that you do will determine the specific alignment specs to be used. (Specs differ depending on whether the car is used for road racing, drag racing, cruising and so on.) Charlie Whittaker, owner of Specialty Brake and Alignment, chose a street/drag race alignment for our Chevelle because it's a street/strip hero, not a canyon carver. | | |